


Satiate

by Emptylester (timelordangel)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anxiety, Comfort, Food mentions, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Phan - Freeform, Phil comforts Dan, bed, chubby dan, set in 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 16:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7539433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelordangel/pseuds/Emptylester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sa·ti·ate</p>
<p>adjective</p>
<p>1.satisfied to the full; satiated.<br/>synonyms: fill, satisfy, sate; </p>
<p>Whatever Dan truly wants, whatever he really needs, keeps manifesting itself as hunger. It's irritating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Satiate

It starts off as midnight snacks. 

Dan finds himself perched on the kitchen counter at a quarter to one in the morning with a handful of dry cereal for the third time this week. It’s Wednesday. 

So what? He argues with himself, he can’t sleep. A snack is supposed to help. 

“Dry cereal is pretty shit,” he says out loud to himself as he runs his tongue over his teeth, “Maybe we have milk.” It’s one am and suddenly he’s made a full bowl of cereal that ends up empty on his bedside table less than ten minutes later. 

The next morning he’s woken up by Phil, who grumpily asks why Dan ate breakfast without him. Dan blinks rapidly and tries to remember why he ate cereal in the middle of the night or even what kind it was. Embarrassed, Dan says he was up at eight and didn’t want to wait for Phil. 

They both accept the lie. 

It’s the next night and Dan’s pacing the kitchen again. He doesn’t even know how he ended up on the cold tile; one second he was watching videos in bed and the next he was staring blankly at the inside of the fridge. 

He pulls out a beer and sits on the floor, his back to the counter, and takes a sip. It’s cold and bitter and generally unsatisfying. 

Somehow, he ends up eating the entirety of the leftover spaghetti from the takeaway they ordered for dinner. He microwaves his portion and eats it when it’s barely tepid, not even tasting it as he scrapes the bottom of the dish with his fork. 

Surely Phil won’t miss his, right? 

They had laughed when it arrived. “It’s enough to feed an army!” Phil had said. Dan had been fine with the small portion Phil had dished out onto a plate for him when they were watching TV together, but in the blinding florescent light of the kitchen at two am it didn’t seem like enough. 

Dan feels guilty when he notices the entirety of the massive spaghetti container is missing. He runs a hand over his stomach and the pasta lump tugs at the waistband of his pyjama bottoms. He shouldn’t still be hungry. 

He dumps the beer out into the sink and frowns at himself in the reflection of the kitchen window. His mind is telling him to go to bed, so he puts a crumpet in the toaster. 

In the two and a half minutes it takes for the crumpet to toast, Dan reflects on his decisions. He needs something, anything. He feels full but empty at the same time; it’s like someone has hollowed him out. 

He takes the crumpet and melts butter on top of it and for a couple of bites that awful feeling of emptiness inside of him goes away. They're a bit stale. When the plate is empty he places it next to the spaghetti plate by the sink and retreats to his room. 

The following Friday Phil is out visiting his parents until Sunday, so Dan is on his own for dinner. He pops down to the shops to buy more shampoo and black socks and finds himself slowly passing the Chinese place on the corner twice over before going in. 

Happy Family, the board reads. Three servings of rice, three pot stickers, a pint of hot and sour soup, and enough chow mien to last a week. 

He orders it and the man behind the counter nods, automatically assuming Dan is taking it to his family- maybe a house filled with a wife and three kids. Maybe him and his boyfriend who plan on having this tonight and tomorrow for lunch. 

Nope. 

Dan gathers the two bags and feels strangely self-conscious as he hurries to his flat, barely making it up all the flights of stairs before crashing through the front door and setting the food down in the lounge. He walks through the empty flat and turns on every light, anxiety spreading through him like a wildfire. 

It vanishes when he turns on the TV and picks up the container of soup. He’d eaten breakfast and lunch, but at only half seven the taste of food in his mouth felt like heaven. He wasn’t even hungry, really. He just knew he wanted and needed this badly, the way a man on dry land who truly believed he was drowning might take a few extra gulps of air, just to prove that he was alive. 

These pot stickers were his air. 

Relief turns to guilt when the only thing left is the rice. He puts it in a glass bowl and puts it in the fridge, leaving the plastic bags and empty containers in the lounge to clean up later. 

Later turns out to be one am, when he returns for the rice. 

Maybe his stomach growling is his imagination. Maybe he has a tapeworm. Maybe he has no self control at all. Dan doesn’t even bother microwaving it, he just takes a fork and goes to town. He is stood in his pants, shirtless, shoveling rice down his throat. He can’t even pretend like he hasn’t eaten the entire Family meal from the restaurant; the evidence is strewn around the kitchen. 

When the rice is gone, resting in the tummy poking out from Dan’s boxers, he gathers the boxes and bags and sneaks to the trash shoot, like he is hiding a body in the middle of the night. 

When he is back in the flat he turns off the lights and darts to his room. On a whim he turns on Phil’s room light and shuts the door most of the way. Maybe then he can pretend his flatmate is home and sleeping soundly. 

When Phil gets home Sunday afternoon, the apartment is pretty void of food. 

“Hey Dan?” Phil calls from the kitchen. 

“Yeah?” Dan appears at the door a moment later. 

“Didn’t Tesco deliver our groceries, like, Tuesday? Why do we have no food?” Phil is whining, not really asking Dan a question. Dan still freezes. 

“I guess we didn’t order enough.” Dan fibs, “We could get takeaway for dinner.” 

“I guess. I need to go out and get some film developed for my mum, I’ll pick up something on the way home.” Phil shrugs. 

When Phil leaves for the store Dan makes another crumpet, using a paper towel as a plate. It feels as though Phil is gone for ages. 

Phil arrives with Chinese and Dan almost blanches, fear jolting through him for a second at the idea of the same cashier spilling to Phil that Dan had just been there, Dan had ordered way too much food and-

“I saw a man there ordering this massive meal,” Phil begins as he sets the table in the lounge, interrupting Dan’s train of thought, “It had like three of everything. It was just for him and his two kids! I kind of wanted to stay and see if they could even finish it.” 

Dan feels sick. “Yeah.” 

“You alright?” Phil asks without looking up at him, folding their cloth napkins, “I got us the sesame chicken to share.” 

Dan looks at the single container of chicken and all he can think is how tiny it looks, how there will be none left over, none to haphazardly microwave at two am when the only thing that will fill this damn hole inside of him is food. “Perfect, thanks.” 

They eat in silence and Dan can barely taste the food at all. 

Dan finishes off the crumpets at two am and gives up on finding more when Phil drowsily walks by the kitchen on the way to the toilet but stops to give him a look. 

“Just getting water.” Dan lies through his teeth, shutting off the kitchen light and lying awake in bed until he can hear the creaking of Phil’s mattress a few minutes later.

Something in him, maybe this hungry beast of thing living in his esophagus, wants to go into Phil’s room. It’s the same feeling he had when Phil walked through the front door this afternoon after being gone since Friday. It craves something light and airy and safe, something Dan isn’t sure exists at all. Maybe the closest thing is Phil.  
He wishes there were still crumpets left.

Dan notices his stomach in the shower one morning. He looks down and squints at the pudge, pinching it between his fingers, his frown deepening the longer he looks at it. When he gets out of the shower he notice that his face has lost its definition slightly. 

He decides not to eat today. 

“You want to make dinner?” Phil asks from over his shoulder as he edits on the office desktop around eight that evening. 

“Not really hungry.” Dan replies as he plays Animal Crossing on the sofa bed, his stomach giving sharp growls of protest every few minutes.

“Oh.” Phil says softly, like he really didn’t expect that. “Do we have leftovers or anything?”

Dan almost laughs. Like he had the capacity to not touch any speck of leftover food. “Maybe.” There are no leftovers.

“Maybe I’ll skip dinner too.” Phil says, his eyes still focused on the screen. 

Dan frowns. “Okay, I’ll make dinner.” 

Something possesses him when he’s making the stir fry and he adds twice as much rice and puts twice his normal serving on his plate. He makes up for it by adding more to Phil’s plate. 

“I thought you weren’t hungry?” Phil grins with upturned eyebrows as they sit across from one another. 

“I’m not.” Dan says between mouthfuls, his serving mostly gone. 

Phil leaves a good half of a plate before offering to do the dishes. All Dan hears is “You can’t go in the kitchen for the next 20 minutes” and there’s a jolt of fear in his heart. 

After not eating all day, the stir-fry really doesn’t satiate Dan. As if anything can though, he thinks. Phil passes out before eleven and Dan sneaks out of the flat to the all night pub down a couple blocks over. 

He doesn’t fit in with the burly men and wasted middle age businessmen. He’s nothing more than a cliché in a booth in the corner, ordering fish and chips and a Vodka Collins at eleven thirty pm. 

And he’s fucking starving. He’s never felt hunger like this. It doesn’t resonate in his gut, or sit peacefully in his stomach until his next meal. Oh no, this climbs through his intestines and makes them ache and it crawls up through his esophagus and sucker punches his heart on the way up. It pounds behind his ribcage and licks at the linings of his lungs. 

It’s consuming- it’s the sort of hunger that falls directly on his soul. 

The sever feels bad for Dan, this much is clear. She refills his water too often and tries to make small talk. He just desperately wants her to go away. 

The funny thing is that half way through his strange meal he finds himself thinking about Phil. The longer this mess continues the more he envies Phil will all his heart. 

The man visits his family on weekends, edits videos at a normal hour of the evening, eats dinner and goes to bed before midnight. His room is always semi-tidy. He may use three towels in the shower but he has his life in order when it comes to daily habits and Dan’s sitting in a pub at midnight eating his second dinner and he hasn’t done any editing in a week and a half. 

The more he relies on food the less he feels he can go to Phil with these kind of things. It’s like the more time he spends around Phil the more likely Phil is to notice the extra weight on Dan’s frame. The missing spaghetti. 

Does Phil notice?

The shopping arrives two days later and Dan almost gets overwhelmed when putting it away. 

He has to pace himself; he can’t eat everything in the first week. No, he’s got to space it out so Phil doesn’t notice. 

Dan has a pretty good feeling that Phil notices, however, because Phil suggests going jogging one morning and doesn’t really phrase it like a question. Dan’s jogging leggings are tight around his legs and he pretends not to notice. 

They jog for about twenty minutes and end up laughing so hard they can’t breathe and spend the next hour just walking with each other. The fresh air and exercise do wonders for Dan and he feels lighter than he has in a long time. 

He wants to hold Phil’s hand. The thought comes out of nowhere (that’s a lie, he’s felt this a million times) and it infuriates him. The second one hunger goes away another one crawls out and makes his fingers twitch. 

Phil’s hand is six centimeters away; he could reach right over. 

Not a minute later two subscribers run up to them grinning and flustered and Dan makes some joke about him and Phil actually going outside. He goes for levity and falls extremely flat. 

As they near their street they run into more people who recognize them and Dan, for once, isn’t really feeling it. He feels a sense of weird possessiveness over Phil that seems to grow as more people ask for hugs. In the all of touring he never quite felt this way, he thinks he might just be tired. 

They dine together when they get home and Dan doesn’t want to eat. He misses the light feeling he had while walking with Phil and all he feels when he looks at the food is anxiety. 

“Are you okay?” Phil asks sincerely when he notices Dan side-eying the pasta.

“I don’t know.” Dan smiles sadly. 

Phil obviously doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t. 

Dan does the dishes with tears streaming down his face. He almost gets away with it too, if only Phil hadn’t decided to get some more water half way through a show. 

“Dan?” Phil’s voice is soft and filled with worry. 

Dan shuts of the tap but doesn’t look at Phil, tears still pouring from his eyes. “Hi.” He rasps. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” Phil puts a hand on Dan’s shoulder. 

“Nothing.” Dan grins, his puffy eyes and red face betraying him.

“Let’s go into the lounge.” Phil orders, his voice firm. Phil the Problem Solver. Phil- the One Who Deals With Things in a Healthy Way. The Amazing Phil. 

Dan washes the soap off his hands and follows Phil into the lounge feeling like a child about to be scolded. 

“Talk to me,” Phil turns the TV off, “You’ve been acting off lately.” 

“I don’t know.” Dan says. He’s sincere- he has no idea what he is feeling or why.

“Why are you crying?” Phil looks so different these days. It might be the glasses perched on his face, or his hair pushed back into a quiff. It might be the concerned look on his face that Dan barely sees, or it may just be age settling in on Phil’s features. For a moment Dan violently misses the Phil he met in 2009, the shaggy haired boy with bright blue eyes and surrealist videos. 

He starts crying again, his arms wrapping around himself in an attempt to cling to something. 

Phil reacts by scooting beside him and wrapping his arms around Dan, rubbing circles on his shoulder. Dan wishes he would back off, to stop touching the body that Dan hates, the one with a new stomach and thick cheeks. Dan also wishes Phil will never stop. 

“Shh,” Phil whispers as Dan collapses against Phil’s chest, “It’s going to be okay. I’m right here.” 

Phil’s t-shirt is soaked around the collarbones, damp with Dan’s tears and saliva. “I’m s-sorry.” Dan hiccups, still clinging to Phil. God, he feels ridiculous.

“No worries.” Phil murmurs. 

Dan calms down and somehow they’ve ended up where Phil is lying on his back on the couch with Dan curled into the side of him, his head on Phil’s chest. Phil is running his fingers through Dan’s hair. 

“You never did tell me why you were crying.” Phil says into the comfortable silence. 

“Anxiety, I guess.” Dan mumbles into Phil’s t-shirt. 

“About what?” 

“Nothing in particular. It’s just there.” Dan worries his lower lip. 

“I don’t think you’re being completely honest with me.” Phil leans back and closes his eyes. “So we’re going to lie here until you tell me.”

Dan almost believed his own lie, but of course Phil wouldn’t. Not this time. 

“You don’t want to know.” Dan says softly, and he means it. 

“Maybe I don’t. But you need to tell me.” Phil looks down at Dan with so much sincerity and love Dan wants to vomit on his own behalf. 

“Are you sure?” Dan whispers. 

Phil just strokes Dan’s hair in response.

“I’ve been feeling kind of distanced from you lately,” Dan begins,

“Well that’s-“

“I’m not done. Just wait,” Dan takes a breath, “It’s kind of my own fault. Lately I feel really empty, like I’m constantly anxious and unhappy unless I’m eating or…”

“Or?” 

“Or I’m with you. Like this, or when we went jogging.” 

“Oh.” 

“It’s hard for me to be completely honest with you here,” Dan admits, not looking at Phil, “because I haven’t been completely honest with myself.”

He desperately wants to tell Phil. He wants to admit that he may be in love with him, maybe they could kiss a bit and then fall asleep together. This overwhelming hunger might just go away.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Phil asks.

“I-“ Dan pauses, “I don’t really know.” 

He looks at Phil and Phil looks back at him and they both know. Oh God, they know. They can read each other like books and they both know. 

“Dan…” Phil licks his lips, 

“Don’t say anything.” Dan laughs humourlessly and fights back tears again. “Don’t.”

“We all have rough patches.” Phil decides to say instead. 

“Can we just lay here for a while?” Dan feels exhausted. 

“Yeah.” Phil whispers, wrapping his arms around Dan. 

Dan is thankful. He’s thankful that he met Phil all those years ago, for the fact that they are best friends. He’s thankful they live together and they’re close enough to fall asleep on the couch in each other’s arms. He’s thankful for the fact that they’re both safe and warm and even just as best friends, Phil is still more his than anybody else’s. 

He fills himself with what he is thankful for and the hunger dies down, a low simmer in the vast expanse of his mind.


End file.
